Shiksha Main Kranti #22

First, understand one thing about life and death: life is change, continuous change; death is stillness, absolute stillness. Death means reaching a state where change is no longer possible. Life means remaining in a state where change can go on. The more changeful a person is, the more alive he is. The more static, stagnant, stuck a person becomes, the more dead he is. This is true of persons, of societies, of civilizations. Some societies are more dead, some more alive; some civilizations more dead, others more alive. Yet, even now, humanity as a whole cannot be called truly alive. Humanity is almost moribund—this is not new; it has been so from the past. The values we have chosen are values of death, not of life. The values we cling to kill; they do not quicken.

For instance, human civilization is built on reverence for the past—honoring what has gone by. But what has gone by is dead. Excessive reverence for the dead becomes an obstacle to the birth of the new. Our honor, our respect should be for the new sun that is rising. If we arouse too much reverence for the sun that has set, it proves destructive to both the individual and society. A person or a society whose mind is oriented to the past, centered on what is gone and dead, is, in a sense, living in a cemetery. Life is born in the future—in the suns that will rise, in the new blossoming, in the flowering of fresh possibilities. But we do not live there. We live where possibilities have ended—in graveyards, among tombs, upon burned-out pyres—centered on what is finished. That cannot give life momentum.

Life-giving values will arise only when we can make society future-oriented, future-centered. As it is, our society is past-centered. And we cling to what is known. The Vedas, the Gita, the Koran, the Bible; Mahavira, Buddha, Christ, Krishna, Confucius—these are names humanity already knows. If we cling to the known, we will never open the doors of the unknown. No route that begins by clutching the known will ever lead into the unknown. To go into the unknown, one needs the ongoing capacity to let go of the known. Courage is needed to drop what we have already learned; only then can we know what is not yet known. And what we have known is so tiny compared to what remains unknown that to cling to it is to choose death with our own hands. But humanity continuously overvalues “knowledge”—that is, the already-known. If we give too much value to what is known—cling to the Vedas, the Koran—then what is not yet known will never be known, and life consists of continuously discovering, uncovering, revealing the unknown.

So the value we give to knowledge should be less; our grip on knowledge should be lighter. What should grow is an awareness of ignorance—the consciousness of how much we do not know. That nurtures life’s growth. Because if we do not know, we can inquire. But if we elevate the tiny corner we do know, clutch it, and sit as “knowers,” then we are dead.

The more a society clutches past knowledge, the more dead it becomes. The more it ventures into the unknown, the more alive it is. Certainly, clinging to knowledge is comfortable, convenient. The awareness of ignorance is very inconvenient. To know that “I do not know” launches a journey that demands effort. To assume “I know” brings the journey to an end; one stops where one is. There is no pain in that. In being alive, there is pain; dying is very convenient. Death is pleasant—it frees us from anxieties, from the burden of inquiry, from life’s tensions, even from the labor of breathing. Unwittingly, in our search for comfort, we arrange for death and create a dying culture that only seems to live while it is actually dying.

If we want a living culture, we must be ready to accept—and even invite—ongoing effort, new possibilities, new pains, new austerities. We need the awareness of ignorance, not the burden of knowledge. The burden of knowledge kills. That is why it is hard to find minds more dead than those of the “learned”—the pundits. No brain is deader than the pundit’s. There is no life in him. The more a person is searching, the more alive he is; the more free he is of fixed knowledge and filled with the awareness of ignorance, the more he will enter the unknown.

It is a paradox: the heavier the burden of knowledge people carry, the less they actually come to know. This seems upside down, but it is so. Those who clutch knowledge most tightly end up knowing the least. Those who do not clutch knowledge, who are free of it and aware of their ignorance, are humble and remain engaged in the journey of knowing. And if they want their consciousness to remain alive, they will keep letting go even of what they themselves come to know—so that they do not become burdened by that too. Not only can the Gita or the Koran burden me; even what I myself have come to know in the last thirty or forty years—if I cling to it, if I take possession of it and say, “I have known”—then the days ahead will be dead, and I will not be able to know further. Therefore, the secret of the process of knowing is: know and let go, so you go on knowing. Know and let it pass, so you remain open and free, so that what is new can enter through the door. Know—and drop it. But ordinarily, we know and then we clutch. In fact, we even clutch what we do not know as if we know it. We have turned knowledge into a safe: “Know, then lock it up—it’s property.” And the knowledge we clutch turns to stone; it dies.

Real knowledge is in the ongoing process of knowing. Put it this way: knowledge as a finished thing has no value; knowing has value. “Knowledge” means it is complete; the circle is closed. “Knowing” means there is an opening; we are in the act of knowing, and there should never come a moment when the illusion arises that “I have known.”

Any person, society, or civilization that has this thought—that it “has known”—dies. India died in this way. For thousands of years we have been under the illusion that we have known all, attained all; we are omniscient, the gurus of the world. “Whatever had to be known has been known.” That is why Einstein could not be born in India. How could he? Here we finished the job of knowing long ago—at the time of the Gita we stopped; we closed the doors even on Buddha and Mahavira. “Knowing is finished.” If it was completed with Buddha, how could the twenty-five centuries after Buddha be alive? They had to be dead. And then the possibility of another Buddha cannot arise, because Buddhas are born out of that very pain and anxiety which is the search for knowing. But we have sat down content, thinking we already know.

So I say: a culture, a civilization, a society becomes dead if its values are values of dying. “Knowing” is a value of life; “knowledge” is a value of death. “Learning” is the value of living; “being learned” is the value of being dead. Punditry kills. The quest to know must be continuous, incessant. If someone remains eager to know even in the last moment of life, he is alive even as he dies—and will remain alive after death. That thrill, that eagerness to know, is the very sign of consciousness. And where the illusion arises that “I have known,” rust gathers upon consciousness.

We have also clutched other values that help kill the person—for example, the value we give to “discipline.” Nothing kills more than discipline. Discipline means: do what you are told; do not think about it. That is why we teach soldiers discipline, because we have to make them do things which, if they thought, they could never do. The man who dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima returned, slept peacefully. In the morning, when he was told that a hundred and twenty thousand people had died, he was asked, “Were you able to sleep?” He said, “I slept very peacefully, because I obeyed orders. The matter ends there. The order was to go, drop the bomb, and return. I did my duty.” His sense of duty had become like a stone wall—beyond it he could not see that 120,000 people had died. Had he been capable of even a little thought, he would have said, “Shoot me if you must, but I will not go to kill 120,000 people.” But arrangements had already been made to ensure he could not think.

So in the military—and in our education—we make a person spend three or four years doing foolish drills: “Left turn, right turn; forward march, about turn.” This is not accidental; it is deliberate. Years of such mindless practice turn a man into a machine. When told to fire, he mechanically puts his finger on the trigger and fires—just as he does “left turn.” The question “Is someone dying on the other side?” does not even arise. Discipline kills.

Therefore I say: what we need is discernment—vivek. Discernment is something very different. I am not saying the world should become licentious. Discernment has its own inner discipline. A discerning person thinks, “What deserves to be done must be done; what does not deserve to be done must never be done.”

A discerning person does not mean one who says no to everything. It means that both capacities—yes and no—are preserved. He can say no. A “disciplined” person, in the conventional sense, has had his capacity to say no destroyed. He can only say yes. A person who can only say yes is not a person at all. Even his yes has no value, because a yes has weight only if one is also capable of saying no. We have turned man into a mechanism. The old order teaches a kind of discipline that makes us work like inert machines. It does not give us discernment; it does not give us thought; it gives us belief and discipline. It does not give each person the capacity to think. It tells us, “Respect the guru.” I say: that is discipline. What I call discernment is: “Whoever evokes reverence in you is your guru.” In my view, “respect the guru” is wrong education. The real thing is: whomever reverence arises toward in you—that one becomes the guru. This is entirely different.

The old education says: love your wife. That is discipline. I say: the one you love is fit to be your wife. That is discernment. This is very different. There will be life in it, because love contains life. If a wife arises out of love, the relationship will be alive. The old education says: first make someone your wife, and then, out of duty, love her because she is your wife. That love will be dead; it will never be born, because love is not like “left turn, right turn.” You cannot command someone to love and expect love to arise. Love cannot come by anyone’s order or by a scripture’s rule. Love must well up. Love is such a wondrous event that if it happens, a wife or husband may follow from it—that makes sense. But if husband and wife come first and then love is practiced by rule, that love will be dead, and with that dead love the husband will be dead, the wife will be dead.

That is why our family is a dead entity. Because the family is such a dead limb, if a living individual is born in it, rebellion becomes inevitable. The cause of rebellion is not the rebel; it is the family’s deadness. Within this dead limb, either one must die or one must rebel. We need a living family, and the rule of a living family will not be discipline; it will be discernment. I think the same way about every element of life.

If a teacher in school says, “What I say is right,” that teacher is the enemy of the students. No greater enemy exists, because he is crippling the child’s capacity to think. He is killing the child’s intelligence. He is saying, “You need not think; what I say is right.” A teacher should be like Buddha.

Buddha tells people: Do not accept what I say because I am a Buddha, awakened. Do not accept it because many accept it. Do not accept it because it accords with scripture. Do not accept it because this man is virtuous, a sadhu. Do not accept it because you are charmed by my personality. Think—and accept only if it seems right to you. Such a man fulfills the true meaning of teacher, because he does not impose; in fact, he even takes care that you yourself do not impose upon yourself by mistake. “Do not accept on this ground, or that.” We need a teacher who is not insistent on making you believe, but insistent on making you search; who shows the readiness to set out with the student on an inquiry: “Let us come and seek.” We should not give the student belief, but develop his capacity to think. Do not give thoughts; give thinking. A society and culture that develops in this way will be alive; otherwise it will be dead.

Until now, the society we have made is dead, because its values kill; they do not enliven. And until now, society has been frightened of life; it is afraid of life itself—deeply fearful. It does not want to see a living person, because a living person inevitably brings certain dangers. A living person will be a person, not a mere part of society. Society does not like persons; it likes parts—like a small cog in a great machine. Society wants the individual to have the status of a component. He must not become someone in his own right. Society becomes afraid: “If persons arise, what will become of society?” So society finds ways to kill the person. Only individuals can be alive; society cannot be alive—society is only an arrangement. An arrangement is always dead; where is the living person inside it? And society kills the person; it never wants individuals. Whenever a person arises, society gets into trouble. If a Socrates is born, society gives him hemlock, alleging that he will disrupt society, create anarchy, break everything. If a Christ is born, he must be crucified, because he is trying to be a person. He says, “I will think. I will live. Do not give me your formulas for life. I will love—do not instruct me whom to love. I will give respect—but do not decide for me whom I should respect. I do not want your orders. Grant me my own stature.” The grand social machinery panics when a person arises. Hence the old society was a dead society.

If we want to create a living society, we must not make the person a part of society. We must make the person a complete, free unit in himself—a unit in itself. And society will be the interrelationship of such individuals. Understand this well. Until yesterday, society was important, and individuals were its parts. That is the sign of a dead society: society important, individuals parts. The sign of a living society will be: individuals are important, and society is only their interrelationship. Society will be the interrelationship among living individuals. The individual will not be a part; the individual will be an independent unit. And society will be the relationship among independent units. Until now, the individual was not an independent unit; society was the independent entity, and the individual its part. The individual had to live as society determined.

The hallmark of a living society will be that individuals will live as they think, and out of the long process of their living, what is formed will be society. Society will not decide the life of the individual. Individuals will live, and from the interrelationships of their living, the arrangement that naturally flowers will be society. In the coming world, if we are to create a living society, society will be secondary and the individual primary. If we want a dead society, keep the individual secondary and society important. That is how it has been until now—and in the old world it was very easy to kill the person. In the new world, it will be very difficult.

A thousand years ago, in a village, the entire arrangement was such that no one could live as a person. If someone tried to be a person even in small matters—big matters aside—if a man cut his caste-lock of hair, he would be excommunicated: he could not draw water at the village well, could not marry; when he died, no one would carry his bier. His hookah and water would be cut off. He could not join anyone for meals, and no one would come to his house. In that small, enclosed village, even getting out was difficult, because people were bound to land. The land was the base; it held you. Mobility was minimal. A person bound to land cannot be free. How could he leave the village? He had to live there; tomorrow he would need help in the fields, and people would not help. The day after, someone would fall sick, and the physician would not come. He would need to marry his son, and no bride would be given; even if a bride were found, no one would attend the wedding. When someone died, no one would help carry the body to the cremation ground. In such small enclosures, one was forced to live as society dictated.

In the world that is coming, technology has given great freedom to the individual. One can live apart—even if ostracized. No hospital can refuse treatment. The more technologically developed a country is, the more the individual is freed from the land—his roots are cut away. That is why the smaller the village, the more one is bound; in a big city, less bound; in Bombay, even less; in New York, no binding at all. Society has scattered because people have become uprooted. No one can forbid you to draw water from a well when every house has a tap; you simply open the faucet and water flows. There is no question now of anyone “cutting off your hookah and water.” As technology develops, the gap widens. A technological revolution is passing.

Now both possibilities are clear. We can free the individual and grant him independence. Or, if a government or a society wishes to seize him completely, technology can serve that too. Once, if a village refused someone water from the well, he could still sneak there at night, or bring water from the river, or dig a small well in his yard. But if the state decides that water shall not reach a certain person’s house, today it is very difficult. His tap can be disconnected; his electric line cut, and even lighting a lamp becomes difficult. Technology has made both possibilities explicit: if society wishes, it can utterly crush the individual; if it wishes, it can grant complete freedom.

It will depend on our decision how we use technology. In countries like Russia, they are using it that way. In my view, Russia is recreating a society like the Indian village of a thousand years ago, where the individual had no status, where he could be completely crushed—and more: his child will not be allowed to study. Therefore I say: we must be alert to this danger too. A revolution is passing in which the individual can become free. He need not be a mere part of society. He can stand in his own stature, create his own world—free, living as he wishes—bound by no one.

Absolutely necessary. In truth, whenever we are living, we are living with others. To live means: with others. And the deeper we want to live, the wider the circle of companions should be. The man who lives confined to his village is living very little. But the one connected to the whole world is living much. And the one who has connected even with the moon and the stars, with plants and birds, is living an even greater life.

In fact, the life of the divine means just this: there remains no part with which I am not in communion. Everything stands with me—then I am living the life of the divine. To live means togetherness, relatedness. So of course we will have to create arrangements. But the arrangements should be such that those who join through them do not die within; they can preserve their freedom, their independence.

I may love a woman—but I can love in a way that I choke her and leave her no freedom. I can love in a way that no freedom remains to her at all. I can possess her exactly as I possess a chair. I am the owner of a chair: wherever I place it, it has to stay. The chair cannot refuse. I can also turn my wife into a chair. There will still be a relationship, but it will be the relationship of a master to an object. I will have turned that woman into a thing, killed her soul, converted her into a commodity. Certainly, that is very convenient—because with a thing I am the total owner; the thing can do nothing.

This is exactly what was done. The old culture did precisely this: it virtually killed the woman and made the husband into a god—the husbands conspired together and declared that for women, the husband is god. However the husband may be, the woman must not even consider anything in relation to him. And we spun fine stories to support it. We created the story of Savitri and Satyavan: Satyavan dies, and Savitri fights with Yama and brings him back!

I was speaking to a gathering of women and asked them: can you tell me even one story in which the wife dies and the husband brings her back? If the wife dies, the husband brings home another wife—why bring the same one back? Had Savitri died, Satyavan would have gone in search of another girl. But Satyavan dies, and Savitri tries to bring him back. Savitri has no individuality of her own; if there is an individuality, it belongs to Satyavan. If Satyavan lives, Savitri has life; if Satyavan dies, Savitri’s life is dead.

Surely, to make a family, a man will love a woman and a woman will love a man. But these relationships can be of two kinds.

- One: one of them is killed. If, tomorrow, women gain rights and triumph, they might kill the husband. There are societies—matrilineal, matriarchal—where women have completely killed the husband’s individuality; the husband is reduced to the status of a servant, just as in our societies the woman has been reduced to a servant.

- Or: the relationship can be such that the individuality of both remains; both remain living units; neither binds the other, yet in this unbound state both offer love to one another. The love that arises in this unbound state, I call alive. If one is killed, then everything is dead; then it cannot be alive. This is my vision for the entire structure of society.

Just as I see it, the master should not kill the disciple. The reverse can also happen: the disciples can get together and kill the master. In Russia, after the revolution, the system they created worked a few years and then had to be ended. They inverted the arrangement: student committees were formed, and if a committee complained about a teacher, without any inquiry the teacher’s trouble began.

When I was in high school, a teacher used some abusive words toward me. I said to him, “If you are using abusive words, I take it you are not opposed to their use. Since you are using them, I can assume you permit them—so may I also use such words?” He became so furious that he went and entered a five-rupee fine against my name in the punishment register, writing that I had behaved indecorously.

I followed him and, beneath that entry, I wrote a twenty-five-rupee fine against his name: if a student behaves indecorously, a five-rupee fine is fine; but if a teacher behaves indecorously, at least five times the fine should be there, because he is assumed to be five times wiser than I am. I wrote twenty-five rupees. The principal called me and said, “Have you gone mad? Has any student ever fined a teacher?” I said, “Perhaps not—but I will pay my five rupees only when these twenty-five are collected. Otherwise, convene the school’s court; I will present my case, he can present his, and let it be seen what happened. Primarily, I was treated indecorously. And I did not behave indecorously; I only sought permission to do so. If even asking permission counts as indecorous behavior, that is another matter!”

In Russia they made such an arrangement that if children complained, no investigation was needed—just as here we have an arrangement that if the teacher complains, there is no need to ask the child anything. There, the students killed the teacher; here, the teacher kills the student. Here students cannot punish teachers; only teachers can punish students. In Russia, for five to seven years after the revolution, the reverse prevailed: students could punish teachers as they wished; and if they complained, the teacher lost his job. The students killed the teacher.

But that is not relationship either. That is only revenge. Whether teachers kill students or students kill teachers; husbands kill wives or wives kill husbands; sons kill fathers or fathers kill sons—that is not the question. I am against both. I am in favor of no one killing anyone. The individuality of both should remain—and there should be relationship. And I also maintain that only then can there be relationship. Can we have any relationship with an object? What relationship do I have with a chair? What relationship can there be with a chair? From the side of the chair, nothing can come toward me.

There can be no relationship with a thing; relationship is possible only with a person. Therefore I hold that only the wife who has a personality, who is free, who can also say no, who can walk away tomorrow—only she, to whom we have given full opportunity to live in her own freedom—only she can give joy to her husband. We have the right to love, but love has no right to kill. And the truth is: where there is love, love never kills another.

If a father loves his son, he will give love but he will not bind the son. He will give love and say, “May my love set you free.” If a wife loves her husband, she will not tie him; she will give love, and that love will become the husband’s liberation.

Love should become freedom, not bondage—only then is love true. Otherwise love is false, and behind the facade of love some other drive is at work—some violence, some trick. Something utterly contrary to love—some hatred, some jealousy—is working behind the scenes; love is only sugar-coating. When you want to feed poison, you coat it with sugar. When you want to throttle someone’s neck, first you sugar-coat it with love—and then you grab the neck.

In truth, there is no such thing as positive education. All valuable education is negative. Affirmative education would mean not giving education at all! The real foundation of education is negation. The true value of education is to create a negative mind—a mind that can doubt; a mind that can deny; a mind ready to inquire; a mind courageous enough to suspend judgment; a mind that can experience its own ignorance; a mind that can be oriented toward the unknown. If such a mind is to be created, you do not feed it positives—that is the meaning of giving education.

Because positive education means we don’t give you the opportunity to think; we tell you what to think. We say to you that Krishna is God—that is positive education. We say the Gita is the true scripture. We say the Bible is the real scripture. We tell you; you need do nothing. Positive education means we hand you doctrines, ready-made doctrines whose decisions have already been taken. You are not a participant in that decision. It has been taken apart from you. You are not a sharer in it; someone else decided. Whoever they were, they made the decision; it’s ready-made, and now we simply transfer it to you.

Affirmative education means that the decisions the past has taken are handed over to the new generation, and the only task of the new generation is to accept them silently, reverentially. That is what positive education amounts to. Positive education is a killer. In fact, only a negative mind is truly a mind.

When we develop in a child the capacity to think and give him the chance to reflect, hidden within reflection is the courage to negate. Hidden within it is the opportunity to be an atheist: that he can say, “What kind of God is Krishna? It is questionable.” That he can say, “How is this conduct of Rama toward Sita? This conduct is questionable.” That he can say, “I don’t accept that Christ is a right man; he seems neurotic to me, a bit unbalanced.” He should have the right to say this; he should be able to negate, to refuse.

Such education gives no dogma; it develops the capacity to think. And the capacity to think begins with negation, because there is no reason to begin with affirmation—affirmation is the end. The beginning is always negation; affirmation is the end, for beyond it there are no further questions.

So I say: teach negation and let him reach affirmation by himself. Teach atheism and let him come to theism. And I hold that if atheism is taught rightly, a person will reach theism—and then that theism will be very serious, dignified, deep, because it has passed through atheism. Acceptance has come after denial. The “yes” is born after the “no.” A “yes” behind which there is no “no” is impotent; it is dead. There is no life in it. One who has said “no,” has borne the pain of saying “no,” has passed through that “no,” and one day reaches a place where saying “no” becomes impossible and he must say “yes”—that “yes” will bring revolution to his very being.

Therefore I say: teach atheism and let theism arrive—it will arrive. That will be his own attainment. The positive conclusions will be his achievement; we are not going to give them. We only give him the negative process—how to deny! And let him go on denying until he reaches the point where denial becomes impossible, where acceptance must be. Where his mind itself comes close to the positive. The negative is the process to achieve the positive. Negative and positive are not opposites. Hence, good teaching, a good culture, will teach its children negation, denial, doubt. And trust will arise; we will not impose trust.

And the amusing thing is: if we impose the end beforehand, if we supply the conclusion in advance, then what will the child think? We have snatched away his very chance to think. We ourselves tell him that this idol is of God. We ourselves say that this book is truth. This is not to be doubted. And if you doubt, you will go astray.

When we hand over ready-made conclusions, we deprive him of the opportunity to think. We kill him. One to whom freedom is dear will teach coming generations negation, atheism, doubt.

And I hold that if doubt is brought to completion, from doubt itself one arrives at the place where faith is born. If there is truth in life, I will certainly be able to deny the false—how could I deny the true? And when all that is false has been denied, truth remains—the truth that is. It remains when the false has been cut away—the remaining. That which I cannot deny, which I try in every way to deny and find it cannot be denied—when all denials fall and such a truth appears that there is no way but to accept it, which stands self-evidently accepted because all denials collide with it and return—no denial can cut it.

By denial, the false is cut off and the true remains. By denial, the wrong is cut off and the right remains. Let us not hand over the right; the right will come. Let us teach only the art of denial, let us teach doubt.

This sounds very upside-down, but to me the reason true theists have not been born in the world so far is that you taught theism. If the same force were put into teaching atheism, supreme theists would be born—they would have to be; there would be no escape. If you teach the full art of negation, create the negative mind, then the negating consciousness comes to its ultimate boundary and reaches a point where negation can go no further. And when it cannot, acceptance arises.

So my point is: affirmation will arise; the positive will come. What must be taught is negation. Teach doubt—faith will come. Teach denial—acceptance will come. Teach atheism—theism will come. And we must have the patience to allow theism to arrive.

No, not even there! Not even there. In fact, what is the difficulty? In science there is absolutely no need for “positive values.” Science is basically negative, because its foundation stone is doubt—right doubt. And even what we teach as “positive” in science is not truly positive; it is a hypothetical positive. That’s a different matter. We are only saying to a student: those who researched before you reached certain findings—take them as hypotheses and test them. Experiment, inquire, verify in the laboratory whether they stand or not. The old researchers concluded such-and-such; the door of experiment is open for you.

The very meaning of scientific thinking is to excite the new generation to test old hypotheses. It is not necessary that the old hypothesis be correct. In fact, science proves every day that yesterday’s hypothesis has gone wrong. Newton was found wanting; Einstein is being found wanting—and will go on being found wanting. This will continue. Which means science does not claim absolute truth at all.

A positive mind claims the final truth. It declares, “This is the last word.” Science says, “All truths are approximate.” None is ultimate. Hence science is basically negative. It does not even admit that there is an absolute truth; it says truths are relative. From what we know up to now, this is the conclusion. Tomorrow, knowing a little more, the conclusion may change. Do not take this conclusion as truth; take it as the nearest approximation—a summary distilled from what we know so far. Otherwise, it may be different. Science fully accepts this.

And the science teacher who does not carry this acceptance in his heart has a superstitious mind. He has become a science teacher by mistake. If he tells a child, “What we say is absolute truth; what Einstein said is absolute truth,” that man is not a scientist at all. The very basis of science is negation. Science could blossom only in societies that gave acceptance to negation.

Science could not be born in India; even today it cannot. It arose in the West only in the last three hundred years; before that, even there it could not. In these three centuries a rebellion took place against the positive mind in every sphere—politics, religion, literature, society, painting, music—everywhere. The old positive values were broken and negative values were established.

For example, Bernard Shaw. Someone asked him, “Is there any golden rule in life?” Shaw said, “Yes, there is one golden rule: that there are no golden rules.” He used the old language form—“Yes, there is a golden rule”—only to negate all golden rules.

Over the last three hundred years—from Voltaire, Diderot, Marx, Bakunin, Kropotkin, right up to Russell—the entire journey has been a journey of negation. That negation created an atmosphere. Out of that air, science was born, because people began to doubt everything. Humanity had not even doubted small things; we had no habit of doubt. The past taught us belief, not doubt. For thousands of years we went on accepting things which, had we made even a small experiment, would have been exposed.

It was our common belief that if two stones are dropped from the top of a building, the smaller one will fall later and the heavier will hit the ground first. Such a tiny experiment would have sufficed: go to the roof, drop a big and a small stone together, and see—they fall together. Yet for five thousand years of human history, across the world, the old notion persisted. It felt natural, even logical: the heavy one has more mass, more weight, so it should fall first.

The first man who climbed the tower of Pisa and dropped stones was called mad. “Are you crazy? The bigger stone will certainly fall first! That’s decided! What is there to think about—what experiment?” We too would have said the same: “Your mind is deranged. What is there to do? Obviously the heavier stone will fall first.” But the man said, “Let me at least see. I doubt—could it be they fall together?” Had we been there, we too would have insisted, “How can they fall together?” And when he saw they did fall together, he went to his colleagues—it was the University of Pisa. And note well: there are hardly people more blind than the learned! He told the professors the stones fell together. They replied, “There must be some diabolic mischief at work—some devil is doing this. Otherwise they cannot fall together. The heavy stone must fall first. A devil has entered this man.” In fact, doubt itself was taken as the devil incarnate. If doubt arose in a man, the devil had entered him; if faith arose, then God was within.

It is doubt that has given science its momentum in these three centuries. The more intensely a country doubts, the more intensely science advances there. Nothing is accepted without the desire to test it. Today we will test. Experiment will decide. And tomorrow, bigger experiments may decide that what we knew was also wrong. Science changes daily.

In truth, it has become difficult to write a big book on science today. A large book takes two years to write; in two years whatever you wrote is out of date. Hence science depends on short periodicals—monthly, fortnightly—because every fifteen days so much changes.

Science does not accept absolute truth; therefore it does not rely on the positive mind. Science says the formula is negation; the path is doubt. And whatever has been attained so far must be doubted again and again—so you can find more and more. Nor does it accept that a point will ever arrive where doubt becomes useless. Doubt will continue, because inquiry is infinite. Science holds that doubt continues; inquiry is endless. It is an infinite search—never sit down clutching anything. Wherever you clutch, harm will happen.

To me, the scientific mind is full of negation. What we have called the religious mind so far—the so‑called, pseudo‑religious mind—is full of opposition to doubt. And because I hold that religion is the supreme science—the search into life’s deepest core—religion too must be scientific. It must begin with negation.

“Sir, what measures do you suggest for the coming generation, and what type of education or learning should be given so that the old corruption of power is not imposed on the new generation?”

As I said, the new generation should be taught certain values—first, the value of individuality: each person to remain a person. Be related to groups and society, yes, but do not become an organ of them—be a member, not an organ. Relate, but do not lose yourself. Do not identify yourself so completely that you disappear and only the group or organization remains. Remain a person all your life; seek individuality all your life.

Teach negation—teach doubt. Dare to doubt, and doubt to the utmost. Do not fear doubt; fear belief. Doubt to the limits of your capacity—right up to the last breath—so you can come closer and closer to truth. Through doubt, cut away the false so that truth can come nearer and nearer.

Einstein was doing an experiment. He had failed seven hundred times, yet every morning he came into the laboratory laughing, ready to begin again. The young assistant with him was exhausted. “Is this old man mad? Seven hundred failures—and again he starts fresh!” The youth was tired; he said, “We should drop this now. How many times have we been defeated?” Einstein said, “Defeated? You’re crazy—each time we have won.” “Where have we won? Every experiment has failed.” Einstein answered, “In seven hundred directions we have searched, and we now know truth is not there. We have succeeded seven hundred times. Truth is being endlessly eliminated into nearness. Suppose truth will reveal itself on the seven hundred and fifteenth attempt; then fourteen more eliminations are needed. Then only that will remain; it cannot escape. Where will it go? We have searched seven hundred paths and found it absent. That much is settled. The unknown field has shrunk; it is no longer vast. We have cut away so much. We will keep searching, breaking, discarding—until only the essential remains. Then we will catch it.”

So teach doubt; teach elimination, negation. Drop what is untrue; reject it, so that at last truth alone remains. And what should we give children—knowledge? No. A thirst for learning. Not knowledge, but the thirst for knowledge. Let no student leave the university in the illusion, “I have a certificate, therefore I am knowledgeable.” That is what is happening now—only the ignorant receive certificates of being knowledgeable.

Do not give knowledge; give the thirst for knowledge. Do not teach knowledge; teach the capacity to learn—the attitude of learning. The old world handed out knowledge—ready‑made, borrowed, stale. It did not ignite inquiry; it killed curiosity. It gave formulas, books. Truth was pre‑packaged and delivered—borrowed, stale. That kills the living man; it makes him second‑hand, borrowed.

If we are to create living human beings, do not impose borrowed, stale knowledge. Use even borrowed knowledge only as a springboard: learn it in order to leap beyond it. Learn it so you can jump further than you could alone. Learn so that you can doubt more deeply than you could alone. Learn so that more questions arise in you. The old education gave answers; the new education will teach questions.

Bertrand Russell wrote of an experience: “When I first went up to the university, I thought I would study philosophy and receive all the answers; my questions would be resolved and I would be at ease. But now, at eighty, I must say my assumption was wrong. I thought philosophy would give answers; every answer raised ten new questions. Earlier I wrote that philosophy is the search for deep answers. Now I say philosophy is the search for new questions.” That happened to Bertrand Russell. Others who studied alongside him must have gone away clutching answers.

Until now, the genius among us was never created by borrowed knowledge—he survived despite it, inspite of us; he refused to become “knowledgeable” despite all our efforts. But the mediocre mind came back “knowledgeable.” Now we must create an education in which we do not allow anyone to remain mediocre. We will raise questions in everyone. We will be less worried about providing answers than about awakening inquiry. And if we bring answers from somewhere, it will be only so they give birth to ten new questions. Let them not become a resolution in you, but a doorway to new problems. Let the graduate emerge with questions he must explore in life—not with answers he must impose upon life. Then we can create a new, living human being.

If a living human being cannot be created, the old humanity has reached a point of death from which perhaps even the possibility of life will end—perhaps it will die completely. Dying, dying, dying, we have brought man to a place where either he dies utterly, or we must create a totally new human being. Whatever I am saying is for the search of that new human being.

Humanity must be freed, because if it is not freed it will go insane. In fact, it is already insane. The earth is almost a madhouse. We have also built little madhouses—for those who go too far. And it is hard to say whether those we lock up are not driven further mad precisely because it is impossible for them to live among us common madmen. It may be that for some people living among us is so difficult that they have no option but madness.

The whole world is mad. We must save humanity from this madness, otherwise humanity will die. Out of its madness come wars, great wars; now the final war can also come. A mad humanity can commit suicide any day. It has made all the preparations. The strangest thing is this: the madness of humanity is not the doing of bad people. That is the greatest difficulty to understand. The so‑called good people are responsible. The devices they suggested have borne this fruit. They advised: appear simple, be simple; love; practice nonviolence; speak truth; renounce possession; reduce needs; celibacy—no sex; renunciation—not enjoyment; be hostile to the body so you can find God. The collective outcome of all these devices is that man has gone mad. The good people together have driven humanity crazy.

If this madness is to end, we must reconsider all that these good people taught. A basic point among them is: stop imposing anything upon man. Do not press anything from above. Those who knowingly or unknowingly inflict suffering on themselves or others are in some kind of pathological state; they too are mad in some way. The one who torments others is visible to us; the one who torments himself we make into a saint. But the tendency to inflict pain is the same. The object can be anyone—I can torture another, I can torture myself. The morality of the world so far has been sadistic and masochistic. It has not liberated man; it has made him sick.

So I say: the first foundation of man’s liberation will be to accept man as he is. The attempt to make him moral too quickly is dangerous and costly. If there is anger within, do not hastily teach forgiveness, because hastily taught forgiveness will only repress anger and become false. The man will remain angry and act forgiving. This dichotomy will create such inner tension—living in anger while acting forgiveness—that he will go mad.

Let us accept anger, and instead of teaching forgiveness, teach awareness of anger. The whole morality will be of awareness. This new morality will teach awakening to what is, not ideals of what should be. It will not be a morality of sermons or of what is “good,” but of how to be aware of what is. We accept man as he is—anger, sex, greed, hate, love, whatever is there. We accept it as given. Now let us be aware of it, so we may become rightly acquainted with what we are.

There is no hurry about what we should become. The urgency is to know what we are. And the delightful fact is: when a person becomes fully aware of his own mind, whatever is painful begins to drop by itself, and movement begins toward what is blissful. The awakened person does not even know when anger turns into forgiveness. He does not know when sex turns into celibacy. He does not know when what we call sin falls away and he moves into virtue. And then he is not even conscious of it; there is no ego in his virtue, no claim, no desire for heaven in exchange. The virtue gives such joy that no other heaven is needed. He is so delighted, so fulfilled in that virtue that the question of further reward does not arise. Each moment is a moment of bliss.

Man has been led in a wrong direction. Perhaps it was necessary in the past: when man first emerged from the jungle, with his wild instincts, living with others was difficult. The simple device that occurred was: repress these instincts so society and civilization are possible. It was a first, primitive move. But today man still lives under the same primitive ethics—utterly foolish, stupid. At the primary stage it might have seemed right; what else could a man fresh from the jungle do? He only knew to act from the outside; he had no knowledge of the inner.

But now, after five or six thousand years of moral instruction, it is clear that morality has been the cause of our derangement. Our moral teachers have made us immoral. Our saints and sannyasins have created sores, diseases, leprosy, and cancers in our civilization. If this becomes clear, then we must lay the foundation for a totally new morality, a new civilization, a new humanity. The basis will not be conflict with the “bad,” as the old morality taught—“Fight the bad; remove it; destroy it.”

The basis of the new morality will be: know the bad, live it consciously, recognize it, be aware of it. And if awareness happens, the bad will go. The going of the bad will be a consequence of awakening. We are not trying to push it out. Besides, who are we to push it out? If even the bad has some use for life, it will remain. If there is some juice or joy even in the bad, it will remain. But I hold there is no real joy in the bad—only an illusion while we are asleep.

As we wake up, the old ethic said, “The good contains joy.” I say, “Whatever contains joy is good.” The old ethic said, “The bad contains suffering.” I say, “Whatever contains suffering is bad.” This is a fundamental shift. Now it is not a question of “leaving the bad,” but of recognizing suffering; not a question of “striving for the good,” but of recognizing where joy is. The moments that bring joy will grow by themselves; the moments that bring suffering will shrink.

Gradually a transformation will happen in which nothing within me is crippled, repressed, or maimed; no lame impulses crawling inside that I have broken; no suppressed desires trying to burst out; no inner tension. I will be totally at ease, in deep rest with myself. There will be no inner conflict. And the moment a person attains total rest within himself, I call that sannyas.

Hence my understanding of sannyas is my own: one who lives in total ease with himself, with no inner war, no duality. Only in such rest can the ultimate truth be known. As long as we are tense, full of conflict and struggle, there are so many ripples on the mind—how can we know truth? Total relaxation does not mean only the body is relaxed. That has its value, but total being must be relaxed—intellect, emotion, desire, longing, ambition—everything at rest. When my whole being is relaxed, when there is not a single note of conflict within, when I am soaked in rest, then I know that which is—call it truth, call it God. Total rest is the doorway.

And the great irony, the great sadness, is that our entire morality has taken us away from rest—into quarrel and conflict—bringing man to a place not near the temple of God, but near the gates of the madhouse. In the name of bringing man to God, it has brought him to the madhouse gate. Temples, mosques, churches—all are driving man insane. In name they are temples of God; in reality they push man toward madness.

The whole history of mankind shows we have taken very wrong steps. The greatest work now is to make the coming person aware of this whole mistake. I feel this awareness will come, because awareness dawns when life is in deep crisis. Life is passing through that crisis now. Either we wake up, or we die. Either man survives, or he ends. The entire human race has moved on the path of insanity—not a few, the whole race. The pattern we have given the mind is one that makes it sick. This whole framework must be changed.

The work is enormous—perhaps nothing greater is possible. But however big, it can be done, because man has reached a climax where things are plainly visible. Politics stands where it can end the world. Religions stand with their hands on each other’s throats. Their platitudes mean nothing now—“We are all brothers; love thy neighbor; the world is one family.” Their realities are visible: each has the other by the neck. The one who says, “Love thy neighbor,” has a knife on the neighbor’s chest: “Become a Christian!” The one who says, “The world is our family,” insists, “I am a Hindu.” The one who says, “All men are brothers,” demands, “We want Pakistan; we are Muslims.”

Religions have come to a place where we can see their real faces. The disease has reached its full extent; it can be tested. Politics has led us to madness; clearly the world stands where universal suicide is possible.

In such a clear crisis, if some people work, perhaps man can be awakened. Such a moment has not come before. For the first time the final crisis has arrived—and at such a climax, things may become clear, and a totally new religion may be born. By a new religion I do not mean a new Hinduism, Islam, or Christianity. I mean a religion that breaks all old conceptions of religion—accepting man as he is; not throwing him into inner conflict; not driving him into tension; taking him toward rest and awareness—a scientific religion. Only if this happens is there hope. If not, there is none.

But whether it happens for all or not, for those in whom the idea arises it must happen. This is not a question of waiting for the whole world. I must move toward what is joyous for me, and whoever feels it must move. And whoever moves—when joy thickens within—will want to share it. This is the wonder: in sorrow we do not want to share; we want to hide, to shut the door and be alone. Sorrow contracts us. When you are joyous, you seek a friend to share. Joy overflows; it seeks to reach others.

My effort is this: even if only a few hear, let them find the sense, the vision, the direction toward such joy that when they become joyous, it overflows and spreads around them. There is no difficulty in a hundred years for a totally new, scientific humanity to be born.

Until now we have used science only on matter, never on man. With man we are utterly unscientific. Only with matter have we applied science—hence our tremendous progress there: we reached the moon; we split the atom. Now the time has come to experiment with man—create a scientific morality and a scientific religion, as I have been saying. The day we can apply science to man as well, there will be new possibilities across the whole world. One can put it two ways:

If we hold that what we now call man is not truly man but subhuman—slightly below man—then we can say that, for the first time, a human being will be born. Or, if we already call this man “man,” we can say a superman will be born. It is a matter of definition.

But one thing is certain: in the history of humanity, we have reached a turn from which the possibilities of an entirely new being appear. A new man will be born. It seems to me that, though we have risen above the animal, we have not yet become man—we have become a super‑animal, yet remain subhuman. What we have called “humanity” so far is a transitional state—where the animal strives to become man. The moment is near when man can be born. And man will be born only when we can set him in motion toward awareness and bliss. This can happen.

Education is the foundation. It is the base—and if our scientific understanding of how a new human being can be born becomes clear, we will naturally apply it in education; in fact, we must. The old, moralistic kind of education should come to an end. Everything that drives human beings into tension should cease. The new generations should be nurtured in such acceptance that whatever is within us is accepted—as natural as eyes and ears. And then, whatever is there, we should investigate it thoroughly and come to know it fully.

Consider how much we know today about the eye. Ordinarily we just say, “There is an eye,” and that is the end of it. Beyond that we know nothing. But today an entire science stands around the eye. There is so much knowledge now that if a person wanted to study only the eye, he could not finish in a whole lifetime. But what do we know about sex? The truth is that only since Freud has the subject even been broached a little; otherwise we knew nothing. Yet for thousands of years we went on talking nonsense against sex while knowing nothing at all.

What do we know about love? We have heard the poets’ verses, we have read lovers’ songs and stories. But what meaning does the phenomenon of love carry in the depths of human consciousness? We know nothing. Nor do we know much about anger, or about hatred.

Whatever lies hidden in the human personality—what its deep implications are, how far its roots go—we know virtually nothing. This ignorance is heavy. New education will have to erase it. And new education must move swiftly in this direction. In fact, we should put even more effort into understanding “human chemistry” than we put into chemistry or physics—so that we may know the inner chemistry of the human being. And when these formulas become clear, a new education can take flight.

There are many things that have always been true, but that does not mean we have known them. Until three hundred years ago, humans did not know that blood circulates. The notion was simply that the body is filled with blood—like a pot filled with water. Blood has always been circulating, even within me right now; but without being told, I might never suspect it. It is not a stagnant thing. Only with great difficulty did we discover that blood circulates—then our entire view of blood had to be changed.

Exactly so, what is anger doing within us? What is love doing? What is sex doing? What is greed doing? What is the ego doing—what is the inner chemistry of all these? What happens when we repress them? What happens when we understand them? There is a great need for research and discovery in all these directions—and all of it should be implemented, applied, in the methodology of education. Only then can we use education to help bring forth a new human being.

Two things are certain:
1) First, we must save new children from the old. Half of education’s task should be to protect children from the stupidities of the past. At present, education initiates them into those past follies—it inducts them. The foolishness that has gone on for thousands of years, we teach to new children too. The primary work is to save them from the errors of the past.
2) Second, where the past went wrong, we must do the opposite. Instead of fighting sex, sex should be known and understood. Instead of fighting anger, it should be recognized and known. This knowing will operate on two planes. One: there should be laboratories where such experiments are conducted on a large scale. And two: each person should become a laboratory himself, continuing his own experiments. Just as we eat every day and sleep every day, so too every day we feel anger, we love—we should be just as conscious of the events of love, hate, and anger as we are about what we eat: we don’t eat stones; we don’t eat mud; we think about what we are eating. We don’t lie down to sleep just anywhere; we consider sleep. So even more thought and awareness should be directed toward our inner life and consciousness. Each person should become a laboratory unto himself.

Psychoanalysis...?
Not psychoanalysis alone. Psychoanalysis is a helper. Rather, one should say: psycho-awareness. Psychoanalysis is very useful—but it is analysis, dissection!

You mean psychological education...?
Not education alone. It is certainly right that we should educate about the mind, and whatever has been known about the mind should be presented very clearly. That will take courage, because all the old notions will obstruct it—thousands of them. What we do know about the mind, we are not able to teach children, because it runs contrary to our morality; so we hide it. There should be complete education about the mind. And before a child graduates from school, he should also pass through psychoanalysis—every child should receive a degree only when his psychoanalysis has been done.

But even that is not enough. Psychoanalysis is passive; someone else does it for you. A psychoanalyst will analyze you for a year; some things will be resolved, some things will become clearer; you will become lighter, more peaceful. Yet you still have not become a seeker. That is why I say: psycho-awareness. In analysis, someone else works; you are passive. Psycho-awareness means you are active, not passive. You do something about your mind—discovering the self. The entire educational arrangement should be such that each person gradually becomes eager and enthusiastic to search for himself and begins to do so. Schools, hostels, teachers, students—the whole structure should support self-discovery, not obstruct it. There should be so much inner freedom and truthfulness that each person can discover himself—because self-discovery is difficult, and if it is opposed on all sides, it becomes very difficult.

When a child first begins to feel sexual stirrings, the whole society stands against it, so he suppresses it. He does not even want to know about it. But in a school where there is room for self-discovery, the child will be able to come and say openly, “This is what is happening.” And no one will laugh, no one will suppress him, no one will oppose him, no one will say, “Naughty talk—stop it; such things should not be said; it is indecent.” No one will say that. His words will be heard with love and calm, with sympathy. And whatever the teachers know about it, they will tell him.

There will be no opposition to whatever is within the person. There will be an invitation to inquire. And the children who go farther in the search will be honored accordingly. The atmosphere will be such that gradually each person begins his own search. By the time one leaves the university, he should not only know mathematics, physics, geography, and history; more important than all these is that he comes to know himself. At least he should leave with the basic principles by which, in life, he can go on discovering himself—and one day reach the point where he can say, “I know myself.” If a person cannot be brought to that point, education is meaningless.

Then education is only teaching livelihood—how to earn food, how to make a house. Nothing more. It does not teach self-knowledge. And the old talk of teaching self-knowledge was this: “Teach the Upanishads in school, teach the Gita, teach the Quran, teach the sayings of some saint; make people memorize them, and self-knowledge will happen.” These are foolish notions. Neither by reading the Upanishads nor the Gita nor any saint’s sayings will self-knowledge be attained. Self-knowledge is a long discovery; it does not happen by reading anyone’s words. Teach the Upanishads, teach the Gita—but only so that children know that some people have said such things, that some have gone on such a quest. But reading them will not accomplish the child’s quest. His quest will unfold through psychoanalysis, psycho-awareness, and inner discipline—by increasing the momentum of that process.

Unless this entire arrangement becomes part of schooling and education, we cannot, on a large scale, assist in the birth of the new human being. Then we can only work on a small scale, person by person.

Education will have to be changed. For the old human being is as he is because of old education; the new human being will be as he will be because of new education.